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Interview Skills

Dress For Success

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Interviews Attempt to Determine:

Can you do the job?
Will you do the job?
How well do you fit?

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The Interview Process

Phase One: Preparation
Phase Two: Presentation
Phase Three: Closing

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Phase One: Preparation

Professionalism
Research
Paperwork

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Phase One: Preparation

Professionalism

Appearance

Dress one notch up
Control the interviewer’s perceptions
You decide what the interviewer will focus on
Be noticed for your intelligence, sense of humor, and your work ethic, not for your clothing.

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Clothing and Accessories to Avoid at an Interview

No plunging necklines
No miniskirts
Remove tongue and eyebrow piercings
No jeans, sweatpants, pajama bottoms
No sneakers

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Phase One: Preparation

Professionalism

Confidence

Smile
Look the interviewer in the eye

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Phase One: Preparation

Professionalism

Respect

Be on time
Thank interviewer twice

Show Restraint

Never express dissatisfaction with your current/past employer as this sets off red flags

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Phase One: Preparation

Research the company

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Phase One: Preparation

Paperwork - bring additional copies of your resume and references
ID
Directions

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Phase Two: Presentation

Your opening moves count!
Body Language: firm handshake, smile, pay attention, look interested
Tone and Pitch/Appearance – stay calm and focused
Vocal: No Whining!

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Phase Two: Presentation

Mannerisms

Don’t play with the bosses stuff
Gum….no
Um, ah, like…no
Coffee….no
MP3…..no
Cell…silenced and out of site

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Phase Two: Presentation

Interview Questions

Don’t wing it….be prepared.

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Phase Two: Presentation

Responses to Interview Questions

Common
Behavioral
Hypothetical

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Common Questions

Common questions focus on who you are and why you are interviewing for this position.
They provide the interviewer with basic information about you, who you are, your goals, and experience.

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Common Questions

How do you keep yourself organized?
Why are you interested in this position?
Why are you interested in working for this company?
What do you know about our company?
How would you describe yourself?
What is one of your key strengths?

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Common Questions

What is one of your weaknesses?
Why are you looking for a job?
Why should we hire you?
What are your career goals?
If I were to ask your present (most recent) manager about your ability as a _______, what would he/she say?
How do you manage stress?
What aspects of this position seem most interesting to you? Least interesting?

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Common Questions – Open-Ended

Tell me about yourself….
This question is mainly being asked to allow you to set the stage and climb on the podium.
If you wrap your answer with a one liner, then you've missed the boat. By answering this question crisply, you exhibit your communication skills, clear vision and goal in an excellent way.

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So tell me about yourself…

Spend some time crafting an answer to this question.
Do not include every detail about your life, focus on highlights. Your answer should run between 30-60 seconds.
The goal is to tell a short story about you that will get the interviewer’s attention and get a conversation started.

Do you know that this is the most frequently asked interview question? It is one of the interviewers favorite questions as the manner in which it is answered can tell them a great deal about yourself.

It is vitally important how you answer this open question.

This is one question where there are no right or wrong answers and you can prepare your own unique responses in advance. This gives you the advantage of being well prepared and in a position to make a positive impression with the interviewer.

HM want to see how articulate candidates are, how confident they are and generally what type of impression they would make on the people with whom they came into contact on the job.

HM also wants to get a sense of what the candidate thinks is important.

The Wrong Response

There are many ways to respond to this question correctly and just one wrong way: by asking, “What do you want to know?” That tells me you have not prepared properly for the interview and are likely to be equally unprepared on the job. You need to develop a good answer to this question, practice it and be able to deliver it with poise and confidence.

The Right Response

A number of career coaches agree that this is how best to respond when faced with this question:

Focus on what most interests the interviewer

Highlight your most important accomplishments

Focus on What Interests the Interviewer

According to Jane Cranston, a career coach from New York, “The biggest mistake people being interviewed make is thinking the interviewer really wants to know about them as a person.

They start saying things like, 'Well, I was born in Hoboken, and when I was three we moved …’ Wrong. The interviewer wants to know that you can do the job, that you fit into the team, what you have accomplished in your prior positions and how can you help the organization.”

She recommends starting with your most recent employment and explaining why you are well qualified for the position. According to Fox, the key to all successful interviewing is to match your qualifications to what the interviewer is looking for. “In other words, you want to be selling what the buyer is buying.”

Think of your response as a movie preview, says Melanie Szlucha, a coach with Red Inc. “The movie preview always relates to the movie you're about to see. You never see a movie preview for an animated flick when you're there to see a slasher movie. So the ‘tell me about yourself” answer needs to directly fit the concerns of your prospective employer.”

Previews are also short but show clips of the movie that people would want to see more of later. They provide enough information about the movie so that you could ask intelligent questions about what the movie is about. Hiring managers don't want to look unprepared by reading your resume in front of you, so Szlucha advises that you “provide them some topics to ask you more questions about.”

Highlight Your Most Important Accomplishments

Greg Maka, managing director at 24/7 Marketing, advises job seekers to "tell a memorable story about your attributes.” For example, if you tell an interviewer that people describe you as tenacious, provide a brief story that shows how you have been tenacious in achieving your goals. “Stories are powerful and are what people remember most,” he said.

The main thing in anything you do is to be memorable, in a good way. Your goal when you answer the ‘tell me about yourself’ question is to find a way stand out from everyone else.

And, Be Brief

Maureen Anderson, host of "The Career Clinic" radio show, stresses the importance of keeping your answer short: “The employer wants to know a little bit about you to begin with — not your life story. Just offer up two or three things that are interesting — and useful. You should take about a minute to answer this question.”

To make sure it is succinct and covers what you want it to cover, she suggests that you “write your answer out before the interview, practice it, time it and rehearse it until it sounds natural. Then practice it some more. The goal is to tell the employer enough to pique their interest, not so much that they wonder if they’d ever be able to shut you up during a coffee break at the office.”

Rather than dread this question, a well-prepared candidate should welcome this inquiry. Properly answered, this question puts the candidate in the driver's seat. It gives her an opportunity to sell herself. It allows her to set the tone and direction for the rest of the interview, setting her up to answer the questions she most wants to answer.

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Write an Elevator Pitch about You

Keep it short. What would you most want the interviewer to remember about you?

What

What special qualities do you bring to the table? What makes you valuable?

Why you and not the guy sitting next to you?

Goal

Describe your immediate goals. Goals should be concrete, defined, and realistic. Make it quite clear exactly what it is that you want.

Conduct a self-analysis. A self assessment of your skills, abilities, contributions at your current job, and academic experience, as well as, what your characteristics and strengths are will go a long way. Spend some time on this.

Don't forget to ask yourself what your ideal job is, what kind of boss you would like to work for, and the type of atmosphere you would like to work in. These should be included as well.

2. Draft your statement. Organize your thoughts in logical order. Discuss academic and professional experience as well as honors or awards.

3. Rehearse your statement. Think of this as a 60-second commercial. Your statement should last no longer than 60 seconds but should be effective enough to sell yourself to the interviewer.

4. Add or delete details as necessary. As you rehearse your statement, consider the specific company and job to which you are applying. Your "Tell Me About Yourself Statement" should be customized to each position just as you would customize your objective or profile on your resume.

5. Practice with friends, family, classmates, and teachers.

Getting this statement right could be the determining factor in winning that job position.

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Behavioral Questions

Current employment literature indicates that there is a strong trend toward this type of interviewing.
Behavioral Based Interviewing focuses on past experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills and abilities that are job related.
It is based on the belief that past behavior and performance predicts future behavior and performance.

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Behavioral Questions

Your responses provide information on your skills, perspectives, beliefs, how you think about things, problem solving approach, and decision making approach.
Helps the interviewer determine whether your way of doing things is compatible with what we know makes someone successful in this role, in this company?

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Behavioral Questions

You may use work experience, activities, hobbies, volunteer work, school projects, family life - anything really - as examples of your past behavior.

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Behavioral Questions

Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a conflict with a customer.
Describe a time when you felt most satisfied at work.
Give me an example of an accomplishment that you are proud of.
Tell me about a time when you were not satisfied with your performance.
Describe a situation where you had to adjust quickly to changes.

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Behavioral Questions

One approach to answering these questions is to have a bank of stories about yourself that you are ready to tell and can apply to several different types of questions.

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STAR Model of Writing Stories

Situation & Task present a situation

Give an overview of the problem and the challenges you faced, or what needed to be done

Action describe what you did

Explain your thinking process-what you decided upon and why-and the key actions you took

Result what happened

Communicate the outcome(s), positive or negative. If negative, what

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Hypothetical Questions

Hypothetical questions give the interviewer an idea of how you think about and solve a problem, analyze information, and make decisions.
These are the “What if…” questions.
You will be asked to imagine yourself experiencing a situation and will then be evaluated on how you would handle that situation.

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Hypothetical Questions

If you got a call from a customer who was angry about a billing issue, how might you handle it?
If you disagreed with a coworker about how to complete a project, what might you do?

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Now YOU Ask the Questions

Ask the interviewer relevant and insightful questions
At the end of the interview, the interviewer will ask you if you have any questions. It is not ok to say, “No. You covered everything.”
Prepare several questions about the company, position, or manager to save for the end.

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Phase Three: Closing

Find out what the next steps are
Ask for the job

Restate your interest-show enthusiasm
Ask about their process, time frame & next steps
Ask for the business card of each person with whom you interviewed
Request permission to follow-up

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Follow-Up

Send thank you letter within 24 hours (by email or mail) to each person with whom you interviewed
Re-contact the manager or primary interviewer for status report in the timeframe discussed
Keep your references and networking contacts informed & up-to-date

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Top Three Rules

Always Be On Time
Never Bad Mouth Former Company or Boss
Always Ask for the Job

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Remember, practice makes perfect.

Are you ready for your Interview?